Kraustralia

Let’s Go Anywhere

16 January 2015
Seattle, WA

We are setting off to start our our new life in Melbourne, Australia. With us on this adventure is as little as we could imagine bringing to a new home halfway around the world, . Two bags for each of us to last until our half container pod of remaining essentials (and some not so) are set to arrive 4-6 weeks after we do.

We bid adieu to Alley 24, our home for … (click for more).

Arrival in Melbourne

22 January 2015
Melbourne, Vic

A full twenty-four hours after leaving Seattle – via our scheduled Los Angeles stop and our unscheduled Sydney one – we arrived in Melbourne. Immigration and customs took a matter of minutes, either a nod to Australian efficiency or, possibly, apathy. Our journey to the taxi stand took us outside and into the heat, a very welcome 36C (97F) heat. As our cab headed into the city our fatigue and exhaustion melted away as our new home came into view out of the car … (click for more).

Settling In

23 January 2015
Melbourne, Vic

On our first full day, we dove right into the culture with a cup of morning tea out on our deck. The cool, marine breeze of the early morning soon gave way to summer heat. We took a long walk along the Bay Trail down to Point Ormond. The way back was warm; the heat, the sweat, the sun on our skin all so wonderful after the last few months in wet and cool Pacific Northwest. We live here now.

The Tennis

24 January 2015
Melbourne, Vic

For three weeks in late January / early February all eyes – in the tennis world at least – are on Melbourne and the Australian Open. Or, more affectionately referred to here on the ground as The Tennis . The cultural immersion program we had set for ourselves dictate that we attend, and that we did. A gorgeous, sunny Saturday with temperatures near 30C (86F), we arrived early, as did the rest of … (click for more).

Market Day

25 January 2015
Melbourne, Vic

The Queen Victoria Market is both a tourist trap full of fake Australian Outback hats and crocodile wallets as well as fully functional grocery store and mercantile. Where else can you buy a pallet of kangaroo pelts, mystery crystals, footie gear, toothpaste, antique collectibles and a dozen duck eggs all in the same place. There is truly something for everyone. We bought none of the above, … (click for more).

’Stralia Day

26 January 2015
Melbourne, Vic

Australia Day celebrates the 1788 landing of the British First Fleet in the Sydney Cove. We expected something like an Australian Fourth of July extravaganza. On account of souring public opinion over the ensuing treatment of the Aboriginal peoples, the reality of the holiday is something closer to a modest Columbus Day barbecue. As luck so had it, an old classmate of Erin’s had recently moved to Melbourne … (click for more).

Back to Work

27 January 2015
University of Melbourne, Vic

The fun had to end eventually, I was down here for a job after all. Mind you I wasn’t headed to the salt mines or anything resembling difficult physical labor, but coming back to a schedule and being responsible to an employer was a unwelcome change nonetheless.

I arrived to the brand new Melbourne School of Design (MSD) building and my 9:30 appointment to find … (click for more).

Beach Boxes

30 January 2015
Brighton, Vic

When not outside basking in the glorious January weather, we are busy on Domain.com.au searching for a place to live. This either means walking or taking the trams/trains to different neighborhoods around the city until we are exhausted or sunburned, often both. Our standard operating procedure once in such a condition is to find refuge and relief in a gelato or frozen yogurt shop. I dare you … (click for more).

In Search of a Home

1 February 2015
Melbourne, Vic

We are still vagabonds, living off of takeout at our small, but comfortable AirBnB in the heart of St. Kilda. We put in an application for the small brick homes in the photo below. There are no guarantees here in this ‘lottery for a rental home’ system. It is just one of hundreds that we’ve looked at online and one of a handful that we’ve inspected and applied for. We feel like we have a good chance here because … (click for more).

Not So Super Bowl

2 February 2015
Prahran, Vic

9am Monday morning and we are headed to a bar. A friend of a friend had invited us out to the College Lawn Hotel in Prahran neighborhood. Entrance was pricey, but we did get all you could drink beers and wines and a wide variety of free bar foods. Upon arrival, we noticed the 12th man flag We had made a good choice. The place filled … (click for more).

How Ya Goin

4 February 2015
Albert Park, Vic

After many tours, followup emails and countless hours scouring online listings, we finally secured a place to live. It is a wee Victorian cottage in a neighborhood called Albert Park. It is a quaint, but upscale little area with adequate, but not hip, amenities and, importantly, is only a walk or short bike ride to the beach and a direct tram ride away from … (click for more).

Ikea-a-thon

8-9 February 2015
Richmond, Vic

We now have a house. It is filled with exactly nothing as all we own here are the bags we brought on the plane (and the various suncreens Andy has hoarded in the past two weeks) and those are still at the Airbnb we have for a few more days. So we went shopping. Furniture shopping – the seventh level of hell for one of us. In fact, Andy might … (click for more).

Moving In

12 February 2015
Albert Park, Vic

This entire blog post could be about nothing more than the series of minor failures that we have had in the past week while moving into our new home. Instead, we will channel the positive and enlighten you with the few, but crucial wins we have had secured. To begin, we are now the proud owners of … (click for more).

A Downtown Walkabout

14 February 2015
Melbourne, Vic

To celebrate St. Valentine (Valentino in the large Italian sector of Melbourne) we explored our city – a long date filled with many cultural institutions and ice creams. We began with a trip to the State Library and concluded at Federation Square, connecting these two iconic places via the least efficient … (click for more).

A Slice of Home

21 February 2015
Melbourne, Vic

In need of a vacuum, a year’s worth of toilet paper, three liters of barbecue sauce, a kilo and half of haloumi and several other bulk items that can only be moved with a pallet jack, we took a short tram ride to Costco Australia, conveniently located just north of downtown Melbourne. Rumor has it that the Melburnians were so pleased with the arrival … (click for more).

Furniture and F1

25 February 2015
Albert Park, Vic

Big week for us. We bought a grill (barbie), our couch and desk were delivered (installed incorrectly) and our internet was finally installed (with speeds near that of Andy’s early 2000s dorm room…). After tethering our cell phones to our computers in order to get work done and sitting on the floor for 2 weeks, this was a big improvement. That said, we are coming … (click for more).

A Walk in the City, A Walk in the Bush

2 March 2015
Melbourne + Belgrave, Vic

We are getting to know our new city bit by bit and day by day. Whether by suggestions from new friends, places we have read about on local websites or curiosities stumbled upon while lost, we end up on weekly field trips to discover little city gems. Whilst wandering the city, one of the most pleasant surprises is volume and diversity of street art in Melbourne. This weekend we decided to specifically … (click for more).

Classroom Debut

8 March 2015
Parkville, Vic

The students returned to campus this week, which meant the peacefulness Andy had been enjoying at work was suddenly shattered. It was easy to forget hat a scene a thriving 40,000 student campus could become. Added to this was the fact that we were housed in a brand new building, the likes of which the students hadn’t seen yet … (click for more).

Experimental Cooking

18 March 2015
Parkville, Vic

[Erin] Growing up, whenever my mom would try a meal outside of her wheelhouse, she would always preface the meal with the descriptive warning that it was ‘experimental’. Carrying this over into my adult life, I have begun to refer to Andy’s enthusiastic use of flavors and discretionary attention to recipes as ‘experimental cooking’ and now … (click for more).

Mornington, Day 1

20 March 2015
Mornington Peninsula, Vic

For Erin’s upcoming birthday we decided to finally leave the comforts of the big city and venture into rural Victoria – the Mornington Peninsula to be precise. To do so meant renting a car and driving. Not just any driving, but driving on the left hand side of the road…or basically unlearning everything that you’ve been consciously (and sometimes not so) doing for the past … (click for more).

Mornington, Day 2

21 March 2015
Mornington Peninsula, Vic

Our last minute lodging at the Lindenderry Farm and Vineyards proved restful and we woke before sunrise to head to the Mornington Peninsula Hot Springs. With over twenty mineral pools to dip and soak in, we thought it would be the perfect morning activity. As the first people through the door, hustled up the hill to stake our claim in the aptly named Hilltop pool. Doing so enabled us to catch sunrise … (click for more).

Bachelor Life

31 March 2015
Albert Park, Vic

[Andy] A few weeks ago, you heard about Erin’s daily routine of one-pot cooking, sun-bathing and trips to the market. With Erin in Hawaii and me living the bachelor life, I’ll provide some insight into my own daily exploits. I teach on Tuesday and generally have meetings, class prep and other administrative duties … (click for more).

Botanical Gardens

5 April 2015
Melbourne, Vic

The city is a ghost town. It is Easter weekend, a national holiday, and it would appear that most of our neighborhood and a fair bit of the city are off for a final summer’s weekend someplace else. That included the shop owners and retail clerks. As everything was closed up tight, we walked to the … (click for more).

Grampians National Park

6-7 April 2015
Halls Gap, Vic

Toward our effort to explore our new state of Victoria, we took a quick two-day trip out for some bushwalking in the Grampians National Park. The Grampians Mountain Range, or Gariwerd as known to the local Aboriginals, is a photogenic sandstone range that runs north-south cutting through the Victorian plains. … (click for more).

Fall and Footy

16-18 April 2015
Melbourne, Vic

Fall is definitely here, as the non-indigenous, deciduous trees are all beginning to drop their leaves. After a lifetime in the Northern Hemisphere, it is really hard to condition yourself to think of April as being fall. We’ve both continually been referring to the upcoming months as ‘summer’, though they’ll be anything but as our local friends are keen to remind us. People here have assured us … (click for more).

Farm Life

1-3 May 2015
Ballarat, Vic

This weekend we were invited out to visit our friends Brooke and Steve who are ‘farmsitting’ for a month out in the country. The farm is just outside of the town of Ballarat and although it seemed a world away from the city, it only took about an hour’s drive when we left midday Friday. After an afternoon tour of the farm, we drove into Ballarat to stock up on groceries and drinks. Prior to the first gold strike, Ballarat was … (click for more).

A Day of Culture

10 May 2015
Melbourne, Vic

Our well-laid plans to hike in the mountains east of the city were dashed due to storms. We pivoted and instead embarked on an urban hike to try to get to know our city a little better. Andy kept on calling this a ‘Day of Culture’ but since I am writing this blog post, I will note that a ‘Day of walking really far’ would have been just as apt. From our home in Albert Park, we trekked first to the National Gallery of … (click for more).

Sunshine Coast

23 May 2015
Alexandra Headlands, Vic

As an early birthday present, Erin planned a short trip for us to Noosa and the Sunshine Coast – a set of beachfront communities about an hour north of Brisbane. We caught a Thursday afternoon flight out of Melbourne, which was quite bumpy due to the developing thunderstorms along coast. As we approached the landing, our pilots hit the gas and pulled out of it a few moments before impact and then circled … (click for more).

Noosa

25 May 2015
Noosa, Qld

We left our Alexandra Heads accommodation early on the slow bus bound for Noosa. The trip – cheap and comfortable – follows the windy road all up the coast. We stopped every ½ mile or so to pick up a barefooted surfer or two along the way. Scenic, slow and crowded by the time we arrived in downtown Noosa. Noosa Heads is a very quaint, … (click for more).

A Long Awaited Delivery

28 May 2015
Albert Park, Vic

After five months at sea – well more like two months at sea and three months in customs and port storage facilities – our shipment of household goods finally arrived. And just 72 hours prior to our flights back to the U.S. for the month of June. The boxes looked like they had been kicked, dragged and thrown the entire 8,186 miles, but miraculously nothing, minus … (click for more).

Winter in Melbourne

27 June 2015
Albert Park, Vic

[Andy] I returned from our hectic U.S. trip to depths of Melbourne winter. A calm and sunny 55 degrees. As a native of the upper Midwest I remember late spring/early summer days that weren’t this nice. Yet, a good portion of the locals took the opportunity to don their North Face puffy jackets and knit, woolen hats. Perhaps overkill, but I do love the smell of the wood fireplaces burning in our … (click for more).

Melbourne from the Sky

20 July 2015
Melbourne, Vic

[Erin] I flew back to Melbourne on July 8th, prepared to keep myself busy with work until Andy got back on the 26th. One Cryptolock Virus, one trans-Pacific voyage for my computer and one panic attack later I found myself without a laptop, feeling completely un-tethered from society. The only silver lining of sending my laptop back to the States for resurrection was that with the … (click for more).

Heide Art Museum

22 July 2015
Heidelberg, Vic

[Erin] Earlier this week, on a day that promised to have 0% chance of rain, I took a bike ride out of town to visit the Heide Museum of Modern Art. A 20 kilometer bike ride from the city, the Heide sits within 15 acres of parklands. The land was purchased by John and Sunday Reed in 1934. And what was initially their home of a farm house, (Heide I) and kitchen … (click for more).

Blind Date

10 August 2015
Frankston, Vic

One perk of moving to a large, international city is that many of our friends, family and colleagues have connections here in Melbourne. As a result, from time to time we get set up for, what could only be called, blind dates. This Sunday was such an occasion. One of Erin’s childhood friends had studied in New Zealand and knew a girl who happened to be living … (click for more).

Geelong

25 August 2015
Geelong, Vic

We each had a busy past week preparing for new adventures; Andy with baseball tryouts for the Port Melbourne Mariners, (serendipitously enough our local team), and me with my first teaching experience at the University. I was hired as a teaching assistant, or a Tutor as they are referred to here, for a Site Planning and Design studio through the University Landscape Architecture program. … (click for more).

Footy Friday

5 September 2015
Melbourne, Vic

Eric arrived today, our first visitor from back home. For his first full day, we hit up the South Melbourne Market for a lunch of Yum Cha (Dim Sum), Oysters and Meat Pies. We then took a long, leisurely stroll into downtown, winding through Melbourne’s famous alleyways, eventually grabbing a few beers from a small café. There were many choices of alleyway bars, but we were lured in by the large Italian man who smelled strongly of coconut and vanilla and who offered us … (click for more).

Great Ocean Road, Day 1

6 September 2015
Apollo Bay, Vic

The offer of a free upgrade at the rental car office is always a good omen for a road trip. The ‘upgrade’, in this case, meant getting handed the keys to metallic green Holden Commodore Sport Edition. If you are anything other than an Aussie or absolute car wonk, you probably have never heard of Holden. It is an oft-maligned domestic brand. Think Pontiac not Cadillac. Pulling out the Avis garage, strange noises … (click for more).

Great Ocean Road, Day 2

7 September 2015
Warrnambool, Vic

[Erin] We began day 2 of our Great Ocean Road trip in search of more koalas. Slow and seemingly high, these marsupials are 70% shanks, 20% ears and 100% adorable. My maths don’t add up, but the description should at least give you an overall understanding of the koala bear cuteness. We understood the ‘bear’ descriptor after seeing these little guys in action (or inaction), but I would probably characterize them as part Ewok, part hamster. … (click for more).

Heide Sculpture Garden

10 September 2015
Bulleen, Vic

Eric and Erin ventured out to the Heide Museum of Modern Art for a late lunch in the museum’s café and then toured the massive sculpture garden discussing which pieces we liked best. After hearing “I could make that” one too many times from Eric, they both settled on the airy and geometric volume create out of welded rebar as the top … (click for more).

 

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by Andy Krause

andy@andykrause.com